Coolest Winter Destinations in America

Thanks to its proximity to the North Pole, and the lack of urban light pollution, the area around Fairbanks, Alaska, is one of the best places to take in the Aurora Borealis.

The green ribbons of light are caused by charged particles from the sun interacting with the earth's atmosphere, and the crystalline skies near Fairbanks, about 360 miles north of Anchorage, come alive.

JTB Photo Communications, Inc. / Alamy

Looking for the Northern Lights outside Fairbanks? The local university offers online forecasts for viewing.

Joseph N. Hall / Dreamstime.com

Jackson Hole, Wyoming, may be a premier ski destination, but a much less publicized highlight of a visit to the town is a sleigh ride at the nearby 25,000-acre National Elk Refuge.

Jim West / Alamy

Jackson Hole sits at the foot of Wyoming's Grand Teton National Park.

Dave Ryan / Alamy

From mid-December to early April, visitors can enjoy a horse-drawn sleigh ride through Wyoming's National Elk Refuge to see thousands of elk.

Dale Jorgenson / SuperStock

Lake Placid, New York, has hosted the Winter Games twice (in 1932 and 1980), and now caters to visitors seeking their own Olympic-style glory.

Any reasonably fit person can take a bobsled run (with both a professional driver and a brakeman keeping things safe) at Lake Placid's Olympic Sports Complex.

ORDA/Dave Schmidt

Park City, Utah, has three resorts and some of the country's best skiing.

Brian Chase / Dreamstime.com

The best way to get off the crowded runs of Park City, Utah, and really enjoy the countryside is on a snowcat.

Snowcat tours in Park City allow small groups to travel to parts of the mountains with "virgin" runs untouched by other skiers.

Snowmobile tours give you access to all areas in and around West Yellowstone, Montana, a gateway to Yellowstone National Park.

Martyn Evans / Alamy

Roads at the West Entrance to Yellowstone National Park are not plowed in the winter, so you'll need to rent a snowmobile or book a snow coach tour.

Dan Leeth / Alamy

Snowmobile can be the easiest way to travel through the snowy streets in West Yellowstone, Montana.

Yvette Cardozo / Alamy

The town of Millinocket, Maine, is surrounded by snowy expanses, making it the perfect location for winter activities like dog sledding.

Heath Robbins

In Millinocket, Maine, guests can learn how to harness and drive a team of Alaskan huskies.

Dennis Welsh

The cold air coming off Lake Michigan near Traverse City is perfect for chilling grapes to the right temperatures for ice wine.

Courtesy Traverse City Convention & Visitors Bureau

Grapes are left on the vine after the harvest to freeze in the chilly northern Michigan air, then picked and turned into ice wine.

Courtesy Chateau Grand Traverse

The townsfolk of Silverton, Colorado, are so committed to winter fun that they refrain from plowing after the first bountiful snowfall so that the fresh powder will pack into a perma-crust for smoother sledding.

Sue Barker / Alamy

The area around Silverton, Colorado, can see average annual snowfalls of 150 inches.

Richard Semik / Dreamstime.com

In winter, residents of Silverton prefer to get around on kicksleds, which are essentially chairs placed on six-foot-long steel runners.

Kennan Harvey / Aurora Open / SuperStock

Crystal curtains of ice form in the caves in Lava Beds National Monument, thanks to temperatures that hover around the freezing point year-round.

This is a search menu. By typing in the search input you can query all of the articles available on the site and get instant and relevant results from the first keystroke. You can close the search menu by hitting the esc key once if the search input is empty. If you have made a search query hitting the esc key will clear the search input and search results. You can naviate the search the menu by hitting the tab key. Once you reach the last search result you will be naviated back to the clear button where you can clear the results make a new search query. If you reach the last suggested entry you will be navigated to the close button. To get back to the search input you have to hit shift + tab from either the clear or close button.

This is a button that clears the search input field and clears the search results by hitting the enter key. It is only available if a search query is made. You can get it to by forward tabbing from seach input or reverse tabbing from either the close button.

This is a button to close the search menu by hitting enter. You can navigate to it by tabbing forward from the search input.

This is a modal. You can exit by navigating to the close button and hitting enter, or hitting the esc key on your keyboard.